London Lowball

It’s razz, except straights and flushes ruin your hand

You know razz: seven-card stud, lowest five-card hand wins, ace is low, straights and flushes don’t count against you, so A-2-3-4-5 is the best hand. London Lowball deals exactly the same way, but ranks hands ace-to-six: the ace is still low, but straights and flushes count against you, as in deuce-to-seven. The best hand is 6-4-3-2-A, not all one suit. And traditionally, it’s played pot-limit.

How rare is it? Very. BARGE’s rulebook calls it “seldom seen in games played in American casinos”, Wikipedia says it’s played “almost exclusively in Europe”, and no US room rulebook I found (WSOP, TDA, Robert’s) includes it. You’ll almost certainly never see it at a casino mixed-games night. It’s here for completeness.

30-second cheat sheet

• Deal like razz: ante, two down and one up, then three more up cards and a last card down. Betting after every card, five rounds.
• Highest door card brings it in (ace low, ties by suit, K♠ highest). After that, the player with the lowest hand showing acts first.
• Lowest five-card hand from your seven cards wins the whole pot. No qualifier.
• Ace is low, but straights and flushes count against you. Best hand: 6-4-3-2-A offsuit. 5-4-3-2-A is a straight, so it’s bad.
• Pairs are bad, as always.
• Traditionally pot-limit: minimum bet is the size of the bring-in, maximum is the pot.

Full rules

The deal and bring-in

Everyone antes. Each player gets two cards face down and one face up, then three more face up and a last card face down, with betting after every card. Whoever shows the highest door card brings it in. The ace counts low here, ties break by suit, and K♠ is the highest. After the first round, the player showing the lowest hand acts first.

Pot-limit betting

BARGE’s rule: “For all rounds, the minimum bet will be equal to the size of the bring-in and the minimum raise is the size of the last bet or raise. The maximum wager is the size of the pot.” Every source I found says the traditional game is pot-limit, and Wikipedia says the name London Lowball is typically reserved for the pot-limit version. BARGE and Wikipedia mention no-limit variants. This is not a fixed-limit game with razz-style raise caps.

Showdown: ace-to-six

Use any five of your seven cards for the lowest hand. The ace is low, but a straight or flush loses to any non-straight, non-flush hand with a worse high card. Best to worst, BARGE’s list starts: 6-4-3-2-A, 6-5-3-2-A, 6-5-4-2-A, 6-5-4-3-A, 7-4-3-2-A, 7-5-3-2-A… Pairs are worse than any unpaired hand. There’s no joker. Ties split; odd chips by the stud rules.

Rooms disagree

• Where it’s played: Wikipedia says “almost exclusively in Europe”. BARGE says it’s seldom seen in American casinos and first played at BARGE in 2018. A review of Stewart Reuben’s Poker 24/7 says it was popular in London clubs and “has never been used in U.S. casinos”.
• Structure: all sources say pot-limit; some mention no-limit.
• Hand scale: Wikipedia and BARGE agree 6-4-3-2-A is best.

Worked examples

I have no verified worked examples for this game, because the hand evaluator doesn’t support ace-to-six yet. Here’s the idea in plain English.

• 6-4-3-2-A offsuit is the nuts. 5-4-3-2-A is a five-high straight, so it loses to a hand like K-Q-J-9-8.
• 7-5-4-3-A beats 7-6-4-3-A, because you compare from the highest card down.
• A flush, even A-2-3-5-7 in hearts, is a flush and loses to any unpaired offsuit hand. [INFERENCE from “flushes count against you” as in deuce-to-seven; no source gives this exact example.]

How you’ll embarrass yourself

• Assuming straights and flushes don’t count. They do. That’s the whole difference from razz.
• Thinking A-2-3-4-5 is the nuts. It’s a straight. The nuts is 6-4-3-2-A.
• Playing it with fixed-limit betting. It’s a pot-limit game.
• Confusing it with draw ace-to-six lowball. Pagat treats that as a separate game.

Lore and reputation

Stewart Reuben, the British chess organizer and co-author of Pot-Limit & No-Limit Poker with Bob Ciaffone, played in a London scene where pot-limit seven-card stud and London Lowball were popular. A review of his memoir Poker 24/7 says the game “led to a great deal of money changing hands” and that he didn’t rate it highly. (I only read the review, not the book.) BARGE treats it as a rarity: it was first played there in 2018.